Wild in My Backyard

 Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday to you. 

I want to share another journal page for Jo's Keeping It Wild at Art Journal Journey. Today's page is all about some of the "wild" in my backyard.

In my yard there are acorns from the all oaks in the woods around the house, grey squirrels and dragonflies. I even have some wild blueberries growing in the woods near my driveway. 

     I started my page with a cool leaf background that I pulled out of an old Somerset Studio magazine. Then I added a tag and a squirrel image to my page. I die cut leaves and used the stamps that came with the dies to give my leaves some texture. No they are not oak leaves, but I have plenty of other trees in the woods too.  The acorns and the dragonfly are clear stickers that I added. The clip on the tag and the blue berries are punch outs. The quote is another ancient stamp from my stash, and I used an old die to cut the bottom trim.

      And I've had a lot of actual “wild" encounters lately.

      I think the success story is all the wild turkeys I've come across in the past week or 2, including this mom and older youngster who have spent a lot of time in my yard lately.

     Wild turkeys had disappeared from New Hampshire back in the 1800's. Then in a second attempt to repopulate the state, some were released in 1975. Fish and Game estimates there are at least 25,000 wild turkeys now in the state all originating from that release. I seem to run into them everywhere in my town.

      The other day at work I spent some time watching this kingfisher "hunt" in the lake. He was a bit far off, but I think you can make him out enough in my photo.

     The wild blackberry patch on one side of my driveway is thriving. I have to eat all the ripe ones before my son-in-law shows up and eats them on me. Grin.

Caterpillars are everywhere too.

This is one of the many white hickory tussock moth caterpillars I've seen. While working at the boat ramp one day there was a whole army of them. 

And this woolly bear was in my yard on my grape plant.

      The woolly bear folk lore is that the more brown, the less severe winter will be. The more black, the more severe. I don't see much black at all, so if the legend is correct, it should be a mild winter. But I'm not holding my breath about that one.

       And my wildflower garden has gone wild with both native  flowers and some giant phlox which have seeded themselves into the plot.

     And finally, this corn-like plant has grown up around the base  of where my bird feeders are.  My husband won't let me cut it down because he's quite curious about it. I know it's something that's grown from fallen seed, but I'm not sure if it's corn or not.  

That's all for me today. Have a great middle of your week.